Your guess is as good as mine.

Well, we may finally get some troop withdrawls from Iraq. Bush and Blair are supposedly going to announce a ‘phased withdrawl’, which, for the US, will begin with a reduction from 133,000 to 100,000. Of course, they timed this perfectly, just when things couldn’t be better for Iraqis. Wait, no… they sure didn’t.

Cleveland wants to host Super Bowl L (50), and to do so, they need to put a dome on the stadium. For a measly $90 million, we can join the ranks of many other cities… all of which are populated with tremendous sissies. I mean, really now… does Cleveland strike you as the kind of city with a dome on their stadium? We’re a cold-weather town. It’s fuckin’ freezing 8 months of the year. In fact, just this morning when I woke up, it was in the 30’s. In any case, they’re promoting the idea by saying the stadium could then be used for other activities. Sure, and the $90 million could’ve been used to get Cleveland Public Schools out of debt - a year ago.

A new study says that people who suffer “hard knocks” - or “harsh lessons” - when they’re younger will wind up being more gullible. Hmm… would’ve thought it was the other way around.

Umm… geez… that’s all I’ve got! Boring news day today.

I just bought some kitty litter with the brand name “Cat’s Pride”. Cat’s PRIDE. What cat is taking pride in the substance that it shits in?

“Hey Snuggles, you gotta come over and check out my new litter. Seriously.”

Encouraging news from google trends. (And some all-important perspective.)

The last chromosome of the human genome has been sequenced. For whatever reason, that one’s the bitch. It’s like when you put one of those snap-on covers onto your boat or truck bed. You know what I’m talking about. However, in this case, we’ll have the ability to give newborns the precious gift of Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s - with just the flick of a gene. Technology, folks. I’m wondering though… why is this chromosome so large? If it’s missing, what is the resulting species? I hope it’s whale shark.

Beastiality: not limited to Appalachia. It appears that man has been screwin’ chimpanzees for a million years or more. However, if you’re a hillbilly looking to justify screwing your flock of sheep - you’re outta luck - this was 6.3 million years ago. Nope… that just ain’t favorable anymore.

Given his past accuracy, I think we all know to heed the warnings of Pat Robertson. This time, God must be just generally pissed off at us - unlike when Ellen Degeneres single-handedly caused hurricane Katrina. He tells us that America’s coasts will be lashed by storms, some of which may be considered tsunamis. Shit… God must be a Pistons fan or something.

Which brings me to the Cavs game last night. Hoo boy did we kick the shit out of the Pistons. Now, we only won by 2 points, but Lee-Brawn had something like 32 points, including a couple of 3s. Were it not for the 3rd period lull where the Pistons regained some composure, we would’ve led by 10 at the buzzer. Anyone who knows me is probably aware that I can hardly stand to watch basketball. Trust me - watch game 6… this is some crazy-ass shit.

FBI drops everything to look for Hoffa again. Come on, guys! Any schmuck can contend Hoffa’s remains are on his property. Is this really important anymore? Besides, everyone knows he’s in the Marianas Trench wearing $300 Italian concrete boots.

Bill O’Reilly officially came out as a racist: “many far-left thinkers believe the white power structure that controls America is bad, so a drastic change is needed.” … “According to the lefty zealots, the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide, a rainbow coalition, if you will.” Dude, why don’t you just wear a fuckin’ KKK mask on your show from now on? It’s not even O’Reilly that scares me; it’s all the people who are nodding in agreement while watching him.

Once again, someone drove the wrong way on a Cleveland highway. What is it with our interstates? Are they just not clearly marked? This time it was an SUV, which ended up hitting a semi head-on. Maybe we need tire spikes on our ramps that only let appropriate-facing traffic through.

Jeff K, of Ren & Stimpy fame, teaches you how to draw.

The Architecture of Density. This is a really cool set of photos from Hong Kong that show just how jam-packed the place really is. When I was there, I couldn’t believe how many skyscrapers there were… and how insignificant even the major US cities I’ve been to seemed in comparison. I think this illustrates that perfectly.

Photos of “that guy”. You know that guy - the one who pops up in your picture, but you’re not sure who the hell he is. Most of these are good, but the second-to-last one… how would you not know who that is? It looks like you’re in someone’s house.

The surveillance tapes from the Pentagon on September 11th have been released. Now, the government hopes this will dispel all conspiracy theories surrounding that particular incident. In fact, the Washington Times ran the headline “Videotapes dispel conspiracy”, and claim that the fuselage of a plane is “clearly visible” in the video. Here is the link to the two videos (scroll down a little). Now, you tell me, do you clearly see a god damned thing? I sure as hell don’t. If anything, I think this makes the missle theory a great deal more viable!

Here is my expert analysis. (Extreme sarcasm)
First video:
In the frame just before the explosion, a white tube of some sort is visible on the extreme right hand side of the picture. Now, as a serious plane nerd, I know that American Airlines’ 757s are all bare metal with red, white, and blue stripes. Whatever this object is appears to be all white, and given how pointy it is, we’d expect to see wings or the tail, or something in that frame. Of course it was traveling at a very high rate of speed, and the camera was slow, but if that were just the nose of the plane, it would not appear to be so elongated. I also know that a 757’s tail is 44 feet high, and the nose is 13 feet high. On MetaFilter, there were many claims that people aren’t perceiving the scale properly, but given how near the explosion is to the camera, I think they’re on crack. So, after watching the first video, I’m thinking missle.

Second video:
Just like the first video, there is really only one frame that’s important: the frame immediately before the explosion. In this case, there is another white object on the right hand side, only it is amorphous, and looks a hell of a lot like smoke to me. It’s even kind of bumpy. Again, this object in NO WAY resembles an American Airlines 757. Moving to the next frame, it appears that the smoke continues on its path into the building. If you can see a plane in any of these frames, then tell your dealer I’ll take ten of whatever you’re on.

I’ve never considered myself to be a person who accepts conspiracy theories readily, or without considerable evidence… however, releasing this video has further reinforced the missle theory for me.

Now, here’s something really cool. The meaning of the sphinx in Egypt has long perplexed archaeologists. Recently, it was discovered that its shape aligns with that of the constellation Leo, and linking it with the pyramids creates quite a map of the stars! This is a lengthy article, but it seems interesting.

Verizon and BellSouth say they did not release their customer’s records to the NSA. Who broke that story? USA Today? Man, somebody better get their shit straight.

Amazon’s new A9 website now has maps. Not just any maps - some cities have street-level views of intersections and hotspots. Like… what’s this mystery location? (Only nicodemia will get this - I think…)

Photos of female Israeli soliders. I don’t know why, but I like these pictures. (Yes, there’s a couple of foxes thrown in there, but nothing ridiculous.) I guess they’re just well-taken photos.

I’ll tell ya what, I usually detest basketball, but them durn Cavs have been mighty exciting to watch lately. Last night they edged out the Pistons in game 4, tying the series at 2 apiece. The final score was 74-72, with some amazing last-minute action. I think being at home helped us, but we’re headed back to Detroit for the next game. That Lee-Brawn sure is impressive.

If you give half a shit about Bush’s address last night: here’s the transcript. He actually took a fairly rational and realistic position on the matter, but we’ll see how well that gets carried out.

In July, Iran will begin only accepting payments for oil products in Euros. You know, sometimes I think Bush, Condi and the like all believe these guys are stupid, just because they don’t speak english. With the dollar weakening as it has been lately, this certainly ain’t gonna help us. I could have linked to numerous columns that criticise Bush for not responding to Ahmadi-Nejad’s letter, but I’m not fond of dwelling on suggestions that will forever be ignored.

An anonymous federal source has told ABC News that their phone records are also being tracked, and that the sources of leaks are likely to be uncovered once they happen. Hm.

Hugo Chavez traveled to London, where it sounds like he was far more welcome than Bush was. After a journalist asked if he was taking a Bush-esque “you’re with us or you’re against us” attitude, he confessed that he was offended to be compared to “an assassin, someone who has committed genocide, an immoral man who should be put in jail by an international court.”

The Department of Justice submitted a motion to dismiss the class-action suit filed against AT&T, due to their collaboration with the NSA in the wiretap scandal, and thereby made the matter a “state secret”. See, the system works! Oh wait, no… it sure as fuck doesn’t.

Here is a whole mess of world maps where countries are sized according to their contribution to the subject of interest. So for example, if you look at the toy export map, China is tremendous, and the USA is small. If you look at the toy import map, we’re huge, and they’re small. Some interesting data represented, though.

Web Zen is a place with some cool games.

Record pot bust in C-Town. $2 millon worth. DAYUM!!!